1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to obtaining information from a networked device, and, more particularly, to obtaining real-time status information from a networked device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order for an application running on a host networked workstation to display the status of a networked device, the application must interrogate the networked device to obtain status information. This process is costly, in several regards, first multiple queries are required to obtain the necessary information, which leads to excessive network traffic. Secondly, there is additional hardware/firmware complexity in the networked device in order to establish connections between the workstation and the networked device. Thirdly, the networked device may be engaged with other host applications and be unable to respond when queried by an application.
Different sorts of network frames are used to determine several things about a networked device, including: whether or not the device is present and active on the network; whether or not the device is free to establish a networked connection to a host networked device; and the status of the networked device. The networked device is required to respond in various ways depending on the type of status information requested by the host networked device.
What is needed in the art is an apparatus and a method to provide a uniform response of the real-time status of a networked device each time a request is made.